Liverpool’s transfer business is a masterclass in building a squad without losing quality, other European giants better take note.
Jurgen Klopp has gotten a lot of plaudits for his impressive achievements at Liverpool so far, having taken the club out of decade-long mediocrity and transforming them into one of the very best teams in football history.
This type of sustained progress and established dominance Klopp has managed since taking the reins at Anfield in 2015 is something more frequently seen on “Football Manager” rather than in real life.
While there are many contributing factors to Jurgen Klopp’s success at Liverpool, the most underrated part of it has been the system.
Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool plays a certain style of football and the system above all else is more important than any individual, which is the mantra through which the German has kept this squad relevant through the years.
Ruthless rebuilding
Liverpool is about to lose one of the world’s best players in Sadio Mane, 99% of the rest of the clubs in the world would be left in disarray and panicking if they lost a top ten player in the world but not Liverpool.
The signing of Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota within the last 18 months foreshadowed Mane’s departure.
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And even though neither of those two is individually as good as Mane, they are quite good and have been around the club, assimilating the system to the point where they can now fill the quality gap left open by the Senegalese.
And with Mohamed Salah also in the last year of his current deal, best believe Jurgen Klopp and the rest of the Liverpool decision-makers are doing all they can to ease the team into the next era.
The next era
As earlier mentioned, the players may change but the system remains the same, Liverpool has let go of Coutinho and Mane, two players who were crucial to the team, and will most likely soon lose Salah as well but there is no iota of panic.
The club-record £85 million signing of 22-year-old Darwin Nunez is not a luxury buy even though it seems like it, they are instead signaling the start of another Anfield era.
The previous one spearheaded by the dangerous three-pronged attack of Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane, and Roberto Firmino is done and in typical German fashion, Klopp has not been emotional or sentimental about letting go and rebuilding.
What makes Liverpool special is the ability to rebuild without the team suffering for it, because they anticipate and rebuild gradually rather than hang on to the good times for way too long and then run helter-skelter in search of like-for-like replacements.
Europe take note
Other European clubs like Manchester United, Chelsea, Barcelona etc need to take note of this and adopt the style, predicting and preparing for the end of an era at your club is not disloyal to the current era of greatness, it is simply being proactive.
Manchester United lost Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid in 2009 and failed to replace him until the Portuguese came to replace him 12 years later.
Chelsea enjoyed the good times with Eden Hazard, seven good years, more than enough time to prepare for his eventual exit but they didn’t until he left.
And we are all aware of Barcelona’s travails post-Lionel Messi among other examples of top clubs being a little bit too much in the good times to not think practically about how to extend said good times with a different group of players.
It is almost certain that Liverpool will compete and contend on all fronts again next season, with Darwin Nunez leading the line, flanked by Luis Diaz, Diogo Jota, and Mo Salah and the Reds will remain every bit as dangerous and dominant as we have become accustomed to.
